Yo, Taxi!

New Yorkers hail a lot of cabs, and it can become quite competitive at rush hour when it’s raining, or late at night when bars and nightclubs close. This battle forces New Yorkers to risk their lives wading into oncoming traffic, frantically trying to get a cabbie’s attention. To give the stylish New Yorker the upper hand, I’ve developed Yo, Taxi!, a design that is sure to stop a Yellow Cab in its tracks. Yo, Taxi! is a coat embedded with a persistence of vision display, shown through a single row of LEDs positioned in the cuff of the coat. When the wearer raises his or her hand and begins waving it in the natural taxi hailing gesture, the LEDs illuminate. The POV strobes in time with the wearer’s action, creating the illusion of the word “TAXI” floating in mid-air.

GroundedPower

Along with fellow ITP graduates, I was a founding member of GroundedPower, a startup focused on energy efficiency. Over a three year period, we built a hardware and software system that combines real-time energy monitoring with an integrated suite of consumer engagement and behavioral tools. Unlike other companies working in this space, we concentrated not only on energy monitoring as a means to reduce consumption, but also on encouraging users to make behavioral changes. By providing simple, straightforward tools, we found that our consumers stayed engaged, motivated and empowered to effectively use and manage energy.

Tendril

Tendril is an energy management platform that uses consumer engagement applications and services to help utility companies and their users understand, manage and control their power consumption. Through web and mobile products, Tendril leverages the “Internet of Things” to empower users to monitor and controll their energy usage.

Boundless Brooklyn

This is the first iteration of Boundless Brooklyn’s website.

As they launched with only one product, the site was developed to highlight the story of their brand, emphasizing their Brooklyn roots through lively copywriting and restrained use of photography. Graphic design was used to convey their attachment to the borough’s history as well as the playful nature of their signature product.

Jean-Philippe Delhomme

Website design for the prolific illustrator and artist, Jean-Philippe Delhomme. Jean-Philippe required a design that he could update easily on a regular basis, one that emphasized images over text, and incorporated his existing blog.

Cousteau

Cousteau is a kinetic interactive sculpture, a meditation on the intersection of Nature and Technology. The project grew out of my interests in oceanography and design, and the way that we as humans anthropomorphize in order to relate to technology. Cousteau synthesizes these ideas by using simple movements to suggest that technology might possess its own life force. Through a network of sensors, the sculpture monitors its surroundings, reacting to ambient activity, and a user’s proximity. The goal is to create an experience that is dynamic and engaging, one in which the user can make connections between his/her movements and the object’s response.

Totally Amazing Mutant Ears

Totally Amazing Mutant Ears are sound-collecting headphones that turn every day sounds into completely new and unique aural experiences for the user. By mixing and matching 4 digital distortion modes (reverb, echo, metallic, pitch-shifting effects) the user can orchestrate something out of this world!

CityRacks Design Competition

In collaboration with Design + Know-How, I submitted a proposal to the NYC CityRacks competition. Our aim was to provide not just attractive and convenient bike racks for cyclists, but also to create greater engagement by making the racks useful to non-cyclists as well.

Personal Space Suit

This coat plays with our conceptions and perceptions of personal space. It defends personal space when it is under threat of intrusion, questioning our notion of “ownership” over personal space. Like a cat raising its fur or a porcupine its quills, the coat deploys an array of “spikes” to ward off invaders. The “spikes” both increase the physical space that is under the wearer’s occupation, but also serve as a visual deterrent to encroachment. The system works by sensing the proximity of objects surrounding the garment, and triggers a response when an object or body comes too close.

Vanishing Soundscapes

Vanishing Soundscapes aims to use narrative sound to tap into our collective memory of home. Activated by changes in light at dawn and at dusk, Vanishing Soundscapes is a small, transistor-like object that broadcasts a short audio clip designed to evoke nostalgic American sound memories, whether real or mythic. On hearing the sounds, the listener will be transported to the idyllic and vanishing landscape of our shared past. To emphasize the natural rhythms of the day, the object is actuated by a light sensor rather than a clock or a switch. In this way, the audio clips will attune us to the passing of time, and to a time that no longer exists.

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Yo, Taxi!

New Yorkers hail a lot of cabs, and it can become quite competitive at rush hour when it’s raining, or late at night when bars and nightclubs close. This battle forces New Yorkers to risk their lives wading into oncoming traffic, frantically trying to get a cabbie’s attention. To give the stylish New Yorker the upper hand, I’ve developed Yo, Taxi!, a design that is sure to stop a Yellow Cab in its tracks. Yo, Taxi! is a coat embedded with a persistence of vision display, shown through a single row of LEDs positioned in the cuff of the coat. When the wearer raises his or her hand and begins waving it in the natural taxi hailing gesture, the LEDs illuminate. The POV strobes in time with the wearer’s action, creating the illusion of the word “TAXI” floating in mid-air.

GroundedPower

Along with fellow ITP graduates, I was a founding member of GroundedPower, a startup focused on energy efficiency. Over a three year period, we built a hardware and software system that combines real-time energy monitoring with an integrated suite of consumer engagement and behavioral tools. Unlike other companies working in this space, we concentrated not only on energy monitoring as a means to reduce consumption, but also on encouraging users to make behavioral changes. By providing simple, straightforward tools, we found that our consumers stayed engaged, motivated and empowered to effectively use and manage energy.

Tendril

Tendril is an energy management platform that uses consumer engagement applications and services to help utility companies and their users understand, manage and control their power consumption. Through web and mobile products, Tendril leverages the “Internet of Things” to empower users to monitor and controll their energy usage.

Boundless Brooklyn

This is the first iteration of Boundless Brooklyn’s website.

As they launched with only one product, the site was developed to highlight the story of their brand, emphasizing their Brooklyn roots through lively copywriting and restrained use of photography. Graphic design was used to convey their attachment to the borough’s history as well as the playful nature of their signature product.

Jean-Philippe Delhomme

Website design for the prolific illustrator and artist, Jean-Philippe Delhomme. Jean-Philippe required a design that he could update easily on a regular basis, one that emphasized images over text, and incorporated his existing blog.

Cousteau

Cousteau is a kinetic interactive sculpture, a meditation on the intersection of Nature and Technology. The project grew out of my interests in oceanography and design, and the way that we as humans anthropomorphize in order to relate to technology. Cousteau synthesizes these ideas by using simple movements to suggest that technology might possess its own life force. Through a network of sensors, the sculpture monitors its surroundings, reacting to ambient activity, and a user’s proximity. The goal is to create an experience that is dynamic and engaging, one in which the user can make connections between his/her movements and the object’s response.

Totally Amazing Mutant Ears

Totally Amazing Mutant Ears are sound-collecting headphones that turn every day sounds into completely new and unique aural experiences for the user. By mixing and matching 4 digital distortion modes (reverb, echo, metallic, pitch-shifting effects) the user can orchestrate something out of this world!

CityRacks Design Competition

In collaboration with Design + Know-How, I submitted a proposal to the NYC CityRacks competition. Our aim was to provide not just attractive and convenient bike racks for cyclists, but also to create greater engagement by making the racks useful to non-cyclists as well.

Personal Space Suit

This coat plays with our conceptions and perceptions of personal space. It defends personal space when it is under threat of intrusion, questioning our notion of “ownership” over personal space. Like a cat raising its fur or a porcupine its quills, the coat deploys an array of “spikes” to ward off invaders. The “spikes” both increase the physical space that is under the wearer’s occupation, but also serve as a visual deterrent to encroachment. The system works by sensing the proximity of objects surrounding the garment, and triggers a response when an object or body comes too close.

Vanishing Soundscapes

Vanishing Soundscapes aims to use narrative sound to tap into our collective memory of home. Activated by changes in light at dawn and at dusk, Vanishing Soundscapes is a small, transistor-like object that broadcasts a short audio clip designed to evoke nostalgic American sound memories, whether real or mythic. On hearing the sounds, the listener will be transported to the idyllic and vanishing landscape of our shared past. To emphasize the natural rhythms of the day, the object is actuated by a light sensor rather than a clock or a switch. In this way, the audio clips will attune us to the passing of time, and to a time that no longer exists.